The Netherlands is gradually emerging from a double-dip recession with strengthened public finances and reforms on track to improve the labour and housing markets and the health care and pension systems. These reforms are paying off, says the OECD. Growth is expected to reach 1% this year and 1.3% in 2015.

The number of young people not in employment, education or training (NEETs) remains elevated in many countries since the crisis. This country note examines the characteristics of those at risk of being NEET in the Netherlands along with policies to help meet the challenge. It also includes many new youth-specific indicators on family formation, self-sufficiency, income and poverty, health and social cohesion.

The conference discussed the results of the project as well as policy recommendations on training and skills development for the creation of an innovative and competitive SME sector in OECD countries.

The number of young people not in employment, education or training (NEETs) remains elevated in many countries since the crisis. This country note examines the characteristics of those at risk of being NEET in Turkey along with policies to help meet the challenge. It also includes many new youth-specific indicators on family formation, self-sufficiency, income and poverty, health and social cohesion.

On 17 July 2012, the OECD Council adopted a Recommendation on Fighting Bid Rigging in Public Procurement, which together with the Guidelines, will help sensitise governments to assess their public procurement laws and practices at all levels in order to promote more effective procurement and reduce the risk of bid rigging in public tenders.

This publication catalogues national practices that illustrate implementation of aspects or elements of competitive neutrality and highlights examples of challenges that may be encountered.

This report considers the key findings from a survey on international co-operation jointly carried out by the OECD and the International Competition Network.

This report considers the key findings from a survey on International Co-operation jointly carried out by the OECD Competition Division and the International Competition Network (ICN) in 2012.

This book presents the key findings resulting from discussions held at a series of best practice roundtables on competition and knowledge-based capital.

Competition authorities widely rely on leniency policies to detect, investigate and prosecute hard-core cartels. Jurisdictions that operate leniency programmes recognize the benefits of rewarding not only the first-in applicant who denounces the cartel but also subsequent applicants who provide useful corroboration or new evidence. This publication reviews the findings from a roundtable discussion held in October 2012.

This document contains the proceedings of a Roundtable on Competition and Payment Systems held in October 2012. Discussions focused on recent country experiences on developments regarding all non-paper based forms of payment such as debit and credit cards, and E-payments (through internet, mobile phones etc.).

This publication assesses the impact of previous competition law and policy reviews in nine Latin American countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Panama and Peru. This report was discussed during the 2012 annual meeting of the OECD-IDB Latin American Competition Forum held in the Dominican Republic.

This document contains the proceedings of a Roundtable on Vertical Restraints for On-line Sales held in the February 2013 session of the OECD Competition Committee. Discussions reviewed recent country experiences focusing on how e-commerce affects competition and what are the main vertical restraints competition issues.

Competition authorities are investigating how competition can help lower the prices of essential goods and services for the poor and what competition authorities can do to help, as well as examining how competition policy can help reduce poverty by stimulating employment, innovation and growth.

Strong competition is an optimizer for our economies. First of all, it is the best catalyst to increase our productivity. This is because a strong competition framework generates the right incentives to attract the most efficient firms into our markets.

This document compiles the material discussed in a competition policy roundtable on quality in competition analysis, including a summary of the discussion, country contributions, a background note and expert contribution on how quality factors are handled under U.S. law in the litigated assessment of the competitive effects of resale price maintenance.

Improving France’s competitiveness is essential to boost the economic growth needed to create jobs and allow citizens and businesses to develop their full potential, according to a new OECD report.

This document compiles the material discussed in a competition policy roundtable on road fuel, including a summary of the discussion, country contributions and a background note that discusses the main determinants of gasoline prices and highlights relevant competition features of the markets for road fuel along the supply chain.

An 11-month investigation by the OECD in cooperation with the Greek authorities has identified a wide range of regulations and legal provisions that undermine competition.

We need to fight distortions to competition that can arise from tax avoidance, just like we do from other forms of government intervention, such as regulation, said OECD Secretary-General.

Romania's competition system underwent a peer review of its laws and regulations at the 2014 Global Forum on Competition on 27-28 February 2014. Following this, the report was released at a launch event in Bucharest on 8 April 2014.

This document is a guide prepared for competition authorities to help them assess the expected impact of their activities. It provides a simple and easily-applicable methodology for determining the likely benefits that consumers will derive from the agencies’ decisions as well as suggestions on how to present the results of the assessment to ensure that these are correctly interpreted.

Globalisation has brought a much more international dimension to competition law. This paper presents evidence of the complexity of co-operation between competition agencies and the likely challenges they will encounter in the future to enforce competition law and co-operate effectively.

‌International co-operation in competition law enforcement is at the core of the OECD competition-related work. Prepared by the OECD Competition Committee, this inventory focuses mainly on fifteen bilateral comprehensive government-to-government co-operation agreements where at least one of the signatories is an OECD country.

Governments are increasingly assessing the effects of their policies and effectiveness of public institutions, and competition agencies are no exception. This factsheet was elaborated to help competition agencies advocate their work. It contains evidence on the links between competition and macro-economic outcomes.

Costa Rica's competition system underwent a peer review of its laws and regulations at the 2014 Latin American Competition Forum on 16-17 September 2014. The report was launched in San José on 4 December 2014 and provides a through insight into the current strengths and weakness of the Costa Rican competition regime.

This OECD report presents market studies practices in the six Latin America countries and provides areas for improvement on how to improve their legal and institutional set-up based on competition agencies’ practices.

Market studies provide competition authorities with an in-depth understanding of how sectors and markets work. The OECD and the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office are providing support to Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Panama and Peru in their use of market studies as an important competition tool.

Disruptive innovation is redefining markets around the world and the Latin American and Caribbean region is no exception. In the run-up to the Latin American and Caribbean Competition Forum in Mexico-City on 12-13 April 2016, this article looks at the competition enforcement challenges and advocacy opportunities around disruptive innovations in the region.

Competition policy is vital for creating opportunities for small business and big industry alike. It benefits consumers by reducing prices and increasing the choice of goods and services. This joint World Bank Group-OECD event showcased countries whose pro-competition reform efforts serve as examples for their regional and international peers and introduced tools to guide the design of new and improved policies.

Paris, 19 April 2016: This capacity building workshop on ex-post evaluation of enforcement decisions by competition authorities provided capacity building to competition officials that have already been or will be involved in the ex-post evaluation of enforcement decisions.

Kazakhstan's competition system underwent a peer review of its law and regulation at the 2015 Global Forum on Competition on 29-30 October 2015. The report was launched in Astana on 25 May 2016 and provides a throught insight into the current strenghts and weakness of the Kazakhstan competition regime.

This report shows how competition and public procurement agencies have been using the 2012 OECD Recommendation on Fighting Bid Rigging to raise awareness of bid rigging risks and develop tools to detect bid rigging in public procurement.

The OECD’s latest Competition Assessment of Greece looks at e-commerce, construction, media, wholesale trade and a number of manufacturing sectors such as chemicals and pharmaceuticals.

Lifting many of the regulations stifling business competition in Greece would benefit both consumers, through lower prices, and firms, via higher turnover, according to the OECD.

In the framework of a project with the Mexican Ministry of Economy, this report provides an overview of international experiences and best practices regarding the role of courts in the implementation of competition policy. It presents different institutional designs, the role of courts, courts specialisation and their benefits as well as their relationship with other government bodies and stakeholders.

Governments everywhere are increasingly interested in assessing the effects of their policies and the effectiveness of public institutions. Competition policy is no exception. Competition agencies affect the economy by taking decisions on cases under competition law. With their governments, they can influence market competition in the economy more widely through policy interventions.

‌International co-operation in competition law enforcement is at the core of the OECD competition-related work. This inventory covers over 140 co-operation MoUs between competition agencies where at least one of the signatories is a competition authority of an OECD Member, Associate or Participant to the OECD Competition Committee, or the European Union.

This publication puts forward a research agenda that advocates the importance of market competition, effective market regulation, and competition policies for achieving inclusive growth and shared prosperity in emerging and developing economies. It is the result of a global partnership and shared commitment between the World Bank Group and the OECD.

This article by OECD's Antonio Capobianco and Pedro Gonzaga focuses on whether algorithms can make tacit collusion easier, both in oligopolistic markets and in markets which do not manifest the structural features that are usually associated with the risk of collusion. It was published in the August 2017 edition of the CPI Chronicle.

The combination of big data with technologically advanced tools is changing the competitive landscape in many markets and sectors. While this is producing benefits and efficiencies, it is also raising concerns of possible anti-competitive behaviour. This paper looks at whether algorithms can make tacit collusion easier and discusses some of the challenges they present for both competition law enforcement and market regulation.

Many laws and regulations set the rules for how businesses enter, operate and exit a market and competition assessments help to ensure that these regulations are not overly or inadvertently restrictive for businesses and consumers. This article looks at the tangible contributions competition assessment is making to reforms underway in Greece.

Paris, 31 January 2018: This workshop on regulation and competition in light of digitalisation allowed competition officials to share their experiences with existing regulations that have proved restrictive for digitalisation and started a discussion of how a competition assessment methodology can deal with the most common issues.

With gender equality increasingly at the top of political and social agendas, Chris Pike of the OECD Competition Division reflects on the potential for introducing greater gender awareness into competition policy.

Sydney, 26 March 2018: This workshop presented the results of an OECD review of the Australian Pecuniary Penalties for Competition Law Infringements while launching a debate among Australian and international experts from a variety of backgrounds.

Competition authorities have imposed substantial fines for competition law violations over the last few decades and it is an international consensus that monetary sanctions against corporations are essential to deter anticompetitive conduct.This report compares Australia's competition sanctions regime to that of a number of other major OECD jurisdictions.

Seoul, 2-4 May 2018: This workshop, co-organised by the OECD-Korean Policy Centre and the International Competition Network, provided senior and chief economists with a comprehensive programme on competition economics that will include merger simulation, buyer power, big data, platforms and multi-sided markets, fundamentals of IO and Game Theory among others.

The Portuguese government and the OECD have worked together to assess the costs and benefits of regulations restricting competition in the transports and liberal professions sectors and to propose specific recommendations for change. Read more about the project and access the report.

The 2018 OECD-IDB Latin American Competition Forum takes place in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on 18-19 September 2018. Discussions will focus on the informal economy in the region, industrial policy and the promotion of domestic industry and competition law and policy in Peru.

Paris, 5-6 December 2019 - Focus areas for the 2019 Global Forum are: criticism of competition authorities, competition provisions in trade agreements, merger control in dynamic markets and competition for the market and will incorporate a digital case lab.